I’m almost never home , constantly traveling for multiple reasons. So the little bit I’m home, I’d rather operate the layout than build stuff. I actually do a lot of car maintenance work and plastic kit building over lunch at work, but I can’t paint anything there. I built a few Tichy car kits there that are fairly involved. I had to haul subassemblies home to paint them and bring them back to finish the job. I’m retiring very soon and will then have the time to convert a shed into a shop where I can leave projects out all the time and paint at will.

The PA looks good in the diesel category. That’s all I’ll say. This whole thread is a friendly joke. Relax, everyone . Down South we laugh a lot.

When I was a young railfan in the early 60’s, Class I steam had been gone from our town only 4 years. First generation F units headed up nearly everything along with high nose Geeps (no ugly low noses yet) and 6 axle Alco road switchers. SW’s and Alco S switchers worked our little yard. Alco PA’s pulled a passenger local through everyday. It was a a diesel paradise but we hated them all. They had killed our steam engines that we had barely gotten to know.

Read all the model railroad magazines from back then, NO ONE modeled diesels. According to a survey in Model Railroader, the average model railroader was 33 years old, in comparison to today. They’d all grown up with steam engines and witnessed first hand the slaughter of their beloved Iron friends.

It’s hard for younger fans to understand the true pain that the older generation of fans that ended with fans my age felt about the end of steam. We saw the empty abandoned roundhouses and the still standing water tanks that would never be called on again. And we knew that we would never again hear the sound of those beautiful whistles floating in on the wind, be it a summer’s mid afternoon or deep in the midnight.

To this day, a diesel has not polished the rails on my model railroad . Although I model the “transitional era “ , the resounding cry is “there will NEVER be a ‘transition’ on the Midland Western!” 😂😂

6 axle alco road switchers? As in RSD5s? And nobody wanted to take photos of them? Oh, the humanity!

There is a lesson to be learned here. Relatively few photos exist of the less common types of first generation locomotives. They were gone before most people realized what they were. The DL109 in Len's post is a good example, They disappeared while most railfans were busy chasing steam. None made it to a museum, and to-day we can only assume what they must have sounded like.

Changes can occur overnight. Don't let documenting the remnants of an era drawing to a close blind you to what is happening now. What you turn your nose up at to-day as commonplace will soon itself be rare. When I go out, I take photos of everything. With digital cameras there is no reason not to.